At least, I thought I did.
I liked Arkham Asylum
as well as anybody else. And I enjoyed his run on Justice League right from the start.
But reading the books leading up to Batman: R.I.P.,
I can't help but wonder if I don't like him as much as I thought I did.Take these two storylines.
The main plots of Batman and Son
and Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
are simply ridiculous. There's nothing to them at all.In the first one, it turns Batman has a kid, and he's a more annoying version of Jason Todd. In the second one, Ra's Al Ghul comes back from the dead.
The first idea is a real stinker. Batman fans have already proven they're willing to pay money to kill off annoying kid characters. The second idea simply drags out something everyone knew would happen anyway--in a medium filled with characters coming back from the dead, Ra's is pretty much defined by coming back from the dead over and over. It's certainly not compelling enough to warrant its own book.
But that's not to say these books are entirely without value. There's a great subplot about Batman being attacked by alternate versions of himself. The subplot and the mystery surrounding it is far more compelling than anything in the main story.
And in the Ra's book, the interesting subplot isn't about Batman, Talia, or their little tyke--the most compelling conflict is the one involving Tim Drake and his parents. In order to win Tim's trust, Ra's offers to bring Robin's parents back from the dead.
There are some legitimate questions in the subsequent moral conundrum Tim has with himself and Nightwing as he debates why, in a world like the DCU, where people like Ra's can come back from the dead, where zombies and Dead Man and other heroes and villains run wild, why not bring his parents back?
Of course, that conflict takes place in the part of the crossover that wasn't written by Morrison. So what does that mean?
It doesn't mean I've given up on Morrison completely--he did write the great Batman-confronted-by-alternate-Batmans stuff that runs through these books, so I've got hope for the guy. And I've got hope for Batman: RIP, which I haven't read an issue of yet.
And I didn't hate it for the reasons I thought I would. I thought I'd hate it for the same reasons I hated Superman Returns--the idea of super-hero orphans going around having kids they don't know about is not only silly, but untrue to the characters.
But the history of this one is basically that the old graphic novel Batman: Son of the Demon really took place, and Batman had the kid during a drug-induced farce of a wedding to Talia, the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul.
So I've still got hope that Batman: RIP will be worth reading.
The G.I.Joe movie, on the other hand, I've just about given up on.
